Australian digital venture Husskie tells the stories of successful influencers

Yelena Fairfax is the founder and editor behind influencer-focused fashion, beauty and lifestyle website Husskie. The digital platform celebrates the new breed of celebrities who have made their name and fame from their work in the digital space.

Fairfax has been in the media industry for 15 years. She has worked as the fashion editor at Bauer Media’s OK! Magazine, editor of BeautyDirectory for five years and also spent time on the digital rebirth of Grazia Australia recently.

“One of the things I found was that when I wrote content about celebrities and wrote content about influencers, people were much more interested in the influencer side of things as opposed to what celebrities were doing,” Fairfax told Mediaweek.

“That was the same for me as a consumer. I read celebrity articles with a grain of salt because they are quite media trained and careful of what they say, whereas bloggers are more open and willing to share their lives more. That led me to think, What is out there that is focused on influencers rather than on celebrities?”

During her research phase, Fairfax did find content that focused on telling the stories of influencers. However, a lot of that content was about the big players in the game. There was little to nothing on the small to medium market of influencers. This is where she saw a gap in the market that she sought to fill with Husskie.

In clarifying who qualifies in the different categories of influencers, Fairfax explained 200-300 followers on any social media platform does not make one an influencer of any sort. “You are doing very well with your 200, but I might not classify you as being an influencer,” she said. [Laughs]

“I would classify a micro influencer as someone who has 3,000-20,000 followers. [A mid-tier influencer] would have 30,000-100,000 followers. And if you are going over that, that’s when I start to think of you as a macro influencer.”

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This is an excerpt of the full article, which appears in the latest issue of Mediaweek magazine.

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